Bound
by LMSharp
Summary: The night Fenris left Kaycee Hawke's bed, he stole her favorite scarf, and he never told her why. More hurt than she thought she'd be, Kaycee teaches him to read to save their friendship and ends up falling in love, but even when it seems he cannot return to her completely, his silent pledge holds her like a tether until the day she makes her own. Sometimes heated, non-explicit T.
1. The Stolen Scarf

i.

The Stolen Scarf

Kaycee closed the door behind her and sighed. It wasn't that it didn't tickle her inner rebel that all Kirkwall—Kirkwall, of all places—had decided 'ask the apostate' was the go-to solution when they were in trouble, but it was somewhat exhausting. Shades and demons on the coast today, Coterie tomorrow—and Aveline wondered why she didn't get a job! Sometime over the last three years, someone had set her up as a full-time hero! It was probably Varric's fault. Him and his stories. Sometimes Kaycee just wished he'd asked first before he went around telling everyone she was ten feet tall and devoured dragons for breakfast.

Kaycee leaned her staff up against the coat rack and stepped into the parlor, and stopped. It was almost time for the third watch of the night. Her mother and the household staff had long since gone to bed—so it was far too late for the elf sitting on her bench to be there for any normal visit.

"Fenris—"she began, uncertain.

That was all she had time for before he'd risen from the bench and crossed over to her. In one fluid movement he was before her, standing far too close for propriety, not touching her yet.

"I have been thinking of you," he said. His voice was low, urgent. "In fact, I have been able to think of little else. Command me to go, and I shall."

The patterns on his skin were shifting and shimmering. His eyes blazed, and Kaycee stared back at him, her mind racing miles a minute. Her heart had started pounding. Her stomach had gone tight. She felt goose bumps break out on her skin, suddenly thrice as sensitive to every current in the room, humming in expectation.

Fenris had thrown her the other night, and this was another surprise. She'd seen that he'd begun to take their little games very seriously some time ago, and she'd been curious as to just how far she could take it. Fenris was a mystery and a challenge to her, an interesting possibility—but he was also her friend, and she'd suspected almost since she'd met him that Danarius might have used his slave as more than a bodyguard or a repository for magic, so she'd never thought that Fenris would feel like acting on whatever feelings he had developed for her until he'd said so earlier this week. Certainly she'd never expected him to come to her like this. That he had, though, was—exciting.

He was fairly vibrating with need and frustration, she saw, amazed. Pupils blown wide with desire. More beautiful than she'd ever seen him—dangerous, too. Kaycee wanted to explore this.

She shook her head. "Never," she answered him at last. Before he got the wrong idea, she raised her hand. "I will never command you," she clarified. Fenris's eyes, if possible, blazed even hotter, hot enough to burn. Kaycee cocked an eyebrow, let a smile play about her lips, baiting him. "Was there something you wanted?"

He swore explosively, a Tevinter curse she didn't know, and then he was on her, grabbing her waist, pulling her flush to him—and Maker, he _had_ been thinking of her. His mouth was on hers, bruising, unforgiving, fevered and insistent, like he was trying to devour her, or—no. More like he was suffocating, and she was the very air he breathed.

Kaycee's brain stopped functioning. Her spine melted. Her knees turned to jelly, and she wrapped her arms around Fenris, as much to hold herself up as to kiss him back. There was a sharp, metallic scent to him, a buzzing current coming off his skin—the lyrium, excited like she'd only ever seen it in battle.

Then his tongue was in her mouth, and she fisted her fingers in his unkempt white hair and pressed up into him with her whole body. He was unprepared—he staggered back and hit the wall, but when she would have pulled back to see if he was hurt, Fenris just gripped her waist harder, refusing to release her even for a second.

The tips of his gauntlets dug into the flesh of her hips, and Kaycee moaned into his mouth at the stinging sensation, more pleasant than painful. Fenris growled, and his hand shifted, pulling her even closer, moving down to grope her backside.

"Where?" he asked, biting her jaw, kissing her ear, her throat.

"Upstairs," Kaycee gasped. "Second door on the left."

"Can I—"

"Maker, if you don't!" Kaycee laughed breathlessly.

Fenris met her eyes, and her dazed amazement and delight, the kindled desire he must have seen there seemed to be all the confirmation he needed. He nodded once, hoisted her legs up on either side of him, and carried her. Kaycee clung to him blindly, meeting his searching, scalding kisses helplessly. There was a blossoming warmth in her stomach, a growing ache between her legs. She'd felt it before. But never like this.

At the top of the stairs, Fenris shouldered her door open and kicked it shut after them with an audible thud. In the back of her mind, Kaycee registered they might have woken Orana or her mother, also housed on this floor. She found it hard to care as Fenris tossed her on her bum on her bed. Without further ceremony, without bothering with the lit lantern or dropping his gaze for a second, he started stripping off his gauntlets.

Kaycee gazed back at him from where she sat on her bed, quivering with anticipation.

 _This_ would be interesting.

* * *

A sudden blaze of warmth and light roused Kaycee before dawn, and her heavy eyelids fluttered groggily. She stretched like a cat. Maker, she felt better than she'd felt in years—since the family had left Lothering, at least. Her lips were still swollen; she felt that there would be bruises on her jaw, neck, and collarbone. The soreness she felt already between her legs meant that walking and fighting might be an interesting prospect today, but she was warm and full and contented, languid and relaxed. It had been so long, she couldn't be absolutely certain, but she had a feeling she'd never felt this good even back in Lothering.

Murmuring wordlessly, without opening her eyes, Kaycee reached out to touch Fenris, to convey her satisfaction and gratitude, but she felt only emptiness beside her. The heat and light that had woken her registered then, and she opened her eyes.

Fenris was standing by the hearth, the tongs inside his hand. There was a fresh log upon the fire, and by its light she could see he was completely dressed, staring into the flames in bleak misery.

And she knew.

Kaycee smiled sadly, and gathered the sheet to cover herself. She cleared her throat, and Fenris looked at her. She supposed she should be grateful that it seemed he had stayed to say farewell. He replaced the tongs.

"Was it that bad?" Kaycee asked, without beating around the bush. She endeavored to keep her voice light, familiar, but couldn't quite hide the note of uncertainty there. She hadn't started the night any virgin, but it had been years, and even back in Lothering, she had hardly been the most adventurous young woman in the village. Fenris had—no—he _had_ been the best sex of her life. If she hadn't been the same for him, or if all his desire hadn't been able to vanquish the specters of his past when it was over and he lay beside her in the dark, that would be . . . that would be a blow.

"I'm sorry," he said. "It was fine."

Kaycee swallowed, suddenly feeling small—and despite the rekindled fire, quite cold. She drew the sheet more tightly around herself. Fenris saw it, and he started to cross back over, then shook his head. "No," he said quietly. His eyes found her face, "That is insufficient. It was better than anything I could have dreamed." Kaycee searched his face, and found she believed him. Believed him so much her heart gave a respondent throb.

"Then why—" she evaluated him. "Your markings. They hurt, don't they?"

She had started last night gripping the sheets as he explored her body, fiercely determined in a place beyond words or thought that however much she wanted him, every move should be his choice, that not a single touch would hurt him or give rise to a painful memory. He had been dissatisfied with this, though. He had taken her hands and put them on his body, giving her permission, and what had begun almost wholly one-sided, though certainly not unenjoyable, had dissolved into a blissfully mutual experience as she'd taken him as fully and freely as she'd given herself over. Raw passion had evolved into need and as they'd finally come apart, for a single moment into something far deeper than even that. But now, she wondered if they had been unwise.

But Fenris looked away into the fire. "It isn't that. I began to remember my life before. Just flashes," he told her.

The excuses came tumbling out of his mouth one after the other. He'd lost it again; he couldn't take it; it was too much; it was too fast. Fenris's usual eloquence had deserted him, and all his stumbling attempts at explanations boiled down to two simple facts: he was leaving her here alone, and he probably wouldn't be coming back.

Kaycee watched him fumble, caught between compassion and sadness, resignation and frustration. That he was leaving perhaps was not much of a surprise. She could have halfway expected it. But _why_ , and the _way_ he was leaving—that was the surprise.

Her eyes had caught on something she hadn't seen before—a blood-red scarf tied around his wrist that certainly hadn't been there last night. The scarf was familiar to Kaycee, and the gesture gnawed at her.

The import didn't escape her—that it was their liaison, whatever they had touched together, that had been the catalyst for reactivating his buried memories, even for a moment. But to leave for that seemed senseless, stupid.

"We can work through this," she suggested. She would not beg him, but she saw already it was no good.

"I'm sorry," he said again. "I feel like such a fool. All I wanted was to be happy, just for a little while. Forgive me." He backed out of the room, slowly at first, then faster. His guilty, confused, green eyes didn't leave her face till the last, when he turned with a muttered curse and disappeared.

Kaycee looked down at the floor. She wasn't—she wasn't heartbroken, she decided. She had never expected him to come to her, and even if she had, she wouldn't have expected it to last. But . . . she was sad. Sadder than she could have imagined she would be. If he'd wanted to be happy, if he'd been happy with her, even for a second, why in Andraste's name couldn't he just be happy? Maybe his life before would come back, and maybe it wouldn't, but he didn't have to let it taint what he had now. He was choosing to do that.

Kaycee drew her knees up to her naked chest beneath the sheet. That was the heart of it, wasn't it? It was his choice. And after the life he'd led, she wouldn't take that away from him, wouldn't fight it, not while she claimed to be his friend.

She sat there for a long while. Then she rose and walked over to the wardrobe, clutching the sheet around her. She opened the door and looked at where her scarves hung beside the few dresses her mother insisted she keep for entertaining noble guests and for business transactions, and saw she had been right—one was missing.

He could not have known it was her favorite.

There were others far more valuable, richly embroidered or of finest Orlesian silk, but he'd taken the simple linen one she'd bought from Gamlen's neighbor in Lowtown, because she liked the color against her skin, and because the fabric was from Denerim, like Gamlen's neighbor. Yet Fenris had taken that one, her favorite, and not any other, and he hadn't even asked permission.

Would she have given it to him if he had asked? It wasn't like she'd withheld anything else, she thought, with a surge of bitterness. And staring at the empty hook where her favorite scarf had once hung, Kaycee knew that was the problem. It seemed Fenris had taken more than just her favorite scarf away with him.

She couldn't pin down now what she'd been thinking when he'd come to her. It hadn't been love, not the love she'd seen between her mother and father, anyway, or anything like the consuming passion she'd felt for the tinker's lad when she'd been a girl of fifteen. Maybe she'd let her curiosity get the better of her, or once he'd kissed her, she'd succumbed to a lust-addled fog. Or maybe—just maybe—she'd done it for him, because if in his freedom he'd chosen her, in that moment she'd wanted to give him all that was in her power to give.

But it seemed she hadn't grasped exactly what she had done until it was done, hadn't realized how much she'd given until she'd given it away. Kaycee supposed she couldn't blame Fenris for taking everything she'd offered with him when he'd gone; she wondered if he even knew how much he'd left with. How could he, when she hardly knew herself? But she felt dazed and empty and a little hurt, and like her favorite scarf, it seemed some small part of her was gone. And Kaycee didn't know if she'd ever get it back.

* * *

 **A/N: So this is a seven-part relationship study, similar to one I wrote for Lily and James years ago and the thirteen-part study I wrote two years ago (recently edited and updated) for Alistair and Cousland. Sarcastic Mage!Hawke, brilliant and bored. The study is already complete, so I'll just post a chapter every day for you guys. This is not a big deal for me; the fic is just decent and done and there's no reason not to share it.**

 **I hope you enjoy,**

 **LMS**


	2. Reading Lessons

ii.

Reading Lessons

Kaycee hadn't seen hide or hair of Fenris since he'd left her the night after their passionate, ill-fated tryst. A quiet, little 'why?' had been echoing in the back of her mind every now and again since that night, and there was the lingering, niggling feeling she'd lost something, but none of that really mattered, she decided. All that mattered is that they didn't lose Fenris entirely over this stupidity. 'Too much' and 'too fast' did not have to mean 'not at all.'

Fenris's life was all bound up with hers, she knew. He didn't like all the people she associated with, outright despised Anders and Merrill, but all of his friends were also friends of hers. As he lived across the square, he couldn't go to market without running the risk of encountering her, so if he wasn't going to starve or move, Kaycee figured they'd best get past whatever misguided awkwardness was making him avoid her.

So one night she gathered up a slate and chalk and the reader she had purchased nearly two months ago, and she walked from her house over to his and knocked on the door.

It was nearly two minutes before he opened it. "Kay—Hawke," he corrected himself. "I did not expect to see you here."

Kaycee raised an eyebrow. "Why not?" she asked him. "We're neighbors, aren't we? And you _are_ my friend." Putting it right out there like that, she immediately saw him relax. She gestured at the open door. "Are we going to stand out here on the doorstep, or may I come in?"

Fenris blinked, as if he had not even realized he stood in the entryway, and stepped aside. "Please," he said, gesturing for him to precede him.

Kaycee entered the house, not far, and turned to face him. He let the door close, and regarded her. "It is—good to see you," he decided.

Kaycee adjusted the items she had brought on her him. "And you couldn't have walked across the street to visit any time in the last two weeks? Showed up at either of our friends' regularly scheduled games at the Hanged Man?"

Fenris closed his eyes, a pained expression on his face. "Kayc—Hawke—"

"Don't put yourself out. You can call me Kaycee," she told him, impatient.

"I know I have relinquished that honor."

Kaycee rolled her eyes. "A name is a name. You know I'm not one for titles."

"You are too generous."

"Probably."

Fenris's green eyes searched her face. Kaycee was careful he only see a friend, none of the hurt, confusion, and yes—the slight anger she still felt over what had passed between them. "I do not know what you wish of me," he said at last. "I cannot—"

Kaycee turned away, suddenly impatient. "Maker, Fenris, do I have to want anything other than to see you?" she demanded. "Than for you not to give up everything you've gained for fear of what I _might_ be thinking about what happened? I'm not going to ask you for anything. I just wanted you to know you don't have to lock yourself away up here or anything."

Fenris seemed to absorb this. He bowed his head. "I'm forgiven so easily? I don't know if I would not prefer it if you hated me. It might be easier to bear, and it is no more than I deserve."

"Don't be ridiculous," Kaycee said briskly. "If you can't, you can't. That doesn't have to mean the end of everything we had before, or everything you have with the others."

"I am grateful," Fenris said. An awkward silence stretched between them, then he nodded at the things she had brought. "What is it that you have there?"

"A while ago I bought some readers and a slate," Kaycee explained. "To help you learn to read. But we were always off stopping city poisonings or flushing out cave spiders from the mines, and somehow, I never got around to showing you. We can start now though, if you like. If you still want to learn."

Fenris hesitated. Kaycee guessed what he was thinking, and she sighed in frustration. "For Andraste's sake, I can fetch Orana if it'd make you feel any better. Or we could go back to the estate and have the lesson with Bodahn or my mother in attendance."

The ridiculousness of this suggestion finally got through to him, and his mouth twitched and his eyes warmed slightly. "I do not think that will be necessary. Perhaps we could have used a chaperone some time ago, but it is a little late to protect your virtue now."

Kaycee snorted. "A little late then. If the virtue of an apostate was ever worth anything in the first place." She'd never had any special reason to think so, for all her mother had delusions the mage daughter she'd borne Malcolm Hawke could lay claim to the Amells' noble heritage. Back in Lothering her second lover—the last before Fenris—had outright told her that he would never marry her because of what she was, and he had been a carpenter, and her friend.

But Fenris gazed at her. "A great deal, I imagine," he said softly. "Do not misunderstand me. I do not think the less of you for what happened between us, and I do not diminish it. Your reputation is not what you might think, nor will I allow it to be tarnished. No one will ever hear of what passed from me."

He meant to be chivalrous, of course, but his promises just made Kaycee angry. "You think they don't know already?" she demanded. "You were seen entering my house that night. None of our friends have seen you since. People talk. Do you think I care? I don't. Let them think and say what they like, if they've nothing better to do. I've nothing to be ashamed of, and I don't regret it, either."

"No. _You_ did nothing to be ashamed of," Fenris muttered. His fists clenched, and he turned away from her, face dark and clouded with conflict and self-loathing.

Kaycee wanted to ask him what he thought he'd done that was so shameful. Leaving her? Giving into their desires in the first place? She could swear that annoying little 'why' in the back of her head groaned. She tamped it down hard. She did have her pride.

" _Vashedan_ ," Fenris swore. "Let us speak no more of it. Stay, if you truly wish it." He raised his hand and let it fall. "I fear the light at this time of day is not good for reading, and I keep few candles, and only light fires in the hearths that I use."

He paused, looking around the dark, gloomy, dusty interior of his house. The corpses of the house's previous staff, killed by Danarius's demons, had been removed, but Fenris had put nothing else in order. The signs of the battles that had been fought here were still everywhere: toppled furniture, slashed paintings. If anything, Fenris had made an effort to desecrate the place even further, as if he could insult his former master by neglecting his house. There was more than one broken bottle lying on the floor. "I suppose my housekeeping leaves something to be desired," he mused.

Kaycee smirked. "Well, I wasn't going to come right out and say it. It wouldn't be polite—but now that you mention it, you could give my uncle Gamlen a run for his money." The remark was just like what she would have said before if he'd ever brought it up, but they couldn't get away from it—things _were_ different now—that he'd brought it up at all was evidence of that. Fenris's shoulders hunched and his face closed up, and Kaycee sighed. "Never mind, Fenris. I lived with Gamlen for an entire year. I didn't clean up, either. Where is the light best?"

Fenris had seemed like he might be on the verge of drawing back and ending the evening, but at this he rallied, and Kaycee had to admit that now she was here, he was evidently as willing to try to mend the awkwardness between them as she was. "Come with me."

Kaycee followed Fenris upstairs, into the room Danarius had previously occupied, the room Fenris had claimed for himself. Now it was her turn to hesitate. They had spoken at the table nearby before, of course. There was a candle burning there, and the hearth blazed brightly enough, but . . . Void take it, things were _different_ now. Before, she had been able to ignore the bed on the other side of the room. Now it loomed large in her vision.

 _Stop being ridiculous, Hawke. Do you want to fix this or not?_ Kaycee raised her chin, turned her back on the bed, and, ignoring the table as well, sank down by the hearth to sit on the floor. They would need more light to see and write on the slate than the single candle provided. Fenris seemed surprised to see her sitting on his dusty floor, but sat beside her willingly enough, legs crossed in the fashion of the Dalish. Not, Kaycee thought, that he probably had any idea of that.

She sat the reader aside for the moment and took up the chalk. "See here," she said, inscribing the alphabet letter by letter onto the slate. "These are the letters that make up the words in written Common. Each has a capital version, as it appears at the beginning of a name or a sentence, and a lowercase version, as it appears the rest of the time.

"Each of the letters has different sounds it can make based upon the letters next to it in a word." Kaycee looked over at Fenris. "Spelling is mad," she told him frankly. "There are a few basic rules, but most of it has evolved from tradition. In the end, you just sort of . . . pick it up. But by knowing some of the ways a letter can sound in a word, you can imagine how a word on a page might sound aloud, and until you begin to know some words by sight, that's how you'll read them."

Fenris was frowning, staring at the letters on the slate like he was evaluating how to defeat them in battle. "Show me," he said tersely.

"This is 'A,'" Kaycee obliged, indicating the first letter on the slate. "This is one of the ones with several different sounds. It can sound like ah, or aah, or ay, or au. It's also a letter we see all the time." She wrote a few names down underneath the alphabet on the slate. "See—in 'Hanged Man,' 'Isabela,' 'Aveline,' 'Varric,' and 'battle.'"

"Au," Fenris repeated. "Is 'a' in 'Hawke,' as well, then?"

"Well, yes," Kaycee said, adding her surname to the list and underlining the 'a.' "You have a good ear."

"And this one, in 'Isabela' and 'battle,' what is it called?" Fenris asked, pointing at the next letter in the alphabet.

"That's 'B.' It doesn't have as many sounds as 'a.' A 'b'—"

"Sounds like its name, yes. This would be in 'Bianca,' as well, would it not?" Fenris considered. "As would the 'a,' I suppose."

Kaycee blinked. "You're very quick," she observed.

Fenris scowled. "I may have never learned to read, Hawke, but I am neither a child nor a fool."

Kaycee was embarrassed she had not considered this. "No, you're right. I'm sorry, Fenris."

Fenris looked hard at her, seeing she truly had not meant to insult him, then nodded. "It is nothing. Shall we continue?"

It was apparent he really wanted to learn, and Kaycee smiled. "This is 'C,'" she said. "There are generally just two sounds it can make, unless it is next to an 'H,' but we'll talk about that later . . ."

One by one, she walked him through each letter of the alphabet. "It's okay if you don't remember them all right away," she told him. "We'll go over them again in your next lesson. For now, I just want you to get used to looking at them, so you can start to recognize them in the words you see around town, in the reader, wherever."

Fenris shifted. "Would you show me—"his eyes fell to the chalk, and Kaycee saw what he wanted.

"How to write them?" she finished. Fenris jerked his head in the affirmative. "Of course," Kaycee answered. "You can keep the slate and the reader to practice. Here." She rubbed out the slate with the sleeve of her shirt, heedless of the chalk dust. "You're right handed," she said, thinking aloud, "So you should grip it like I did."

Fenris's hand, so well suited to wielding a sword, was clumsy around the chalk. It slipped through his fingers. He took it up again, but now he gripped it so tightly it broke in half. He swore and threw the pieces away. "I have ruined it. I'm sorry," he said, looking down, as if he expected her to rebuke him for the accident.

"It's fine," Kaycee assured him. "You can write with the pieces, or if you prefer it, I did bring another piece. Chalk is fragile that way." She fished the other piece out of her pocket and offered it to him.

Fenris took it gingerly, and stared at it. Kaycee started to reach for his hand to show him, then stopped. She had fallen into the rhythm of the lesson. The letters on the slate, the teaching, reminded her of years ago in the kitchens of the various cottages they'd lived in over the years, seated at the table with her father, though she had been the pupil and not the student back then. The change in roles had come more easily to her than she would have imagined. But now she remembered the sensitivity of Fenris's lyrium-infused skin—and the last time she had touched it.

Kaycee bit her lip, then picked up one of the broken pieces of chalk on the floor. "Look," she said. "See how I hold it: firmly, but not so firmly that it breaks when it touches the slate."

She brought the chalk to the slate, moving slowly so he could see what she did. She made the first stroke of the capital 'A.' But her brief hesitation had distracted Fenris from the rhythm of their lesson as well. He wasn't looking at her hand. He was gazing at her face, and his look was equal parts amusement and impatience.

Deliberately, Fenris set his piece of chalk down upon the floor. He stripped the gauntlet off of his right hand—just his right hand—and shaped his hand around hers on the chalk that she held. The movement brought his entire body close—too close—and it was so reminiscent of another move he'd made that night that Kaycee caught her breath.

"I appreciate your caution, Hawke, but don't coddle me," he said. "It's important I feel how this is done. I will tell you if it is too much. Now. Show me."

He was so close beside her she could feel the vibrations in his chest as he spoke, and she could feel the excitement in the lyrium burned into his palm and along his arm as well, a slight pulse and a faint heat she'd felt once before. She could smell the metallic sizzle of it in the air between them. He had to know she'd recognize the signs, realize what it meant. Evidently she was supposed to trust him to handle it and ignore them.

But Kaycee looked up into his face, and she could see the memories awash in his darkened eyes, too. _Maker help me, I still want him_ , she thought regretfully. At least, unless she'd lost all powers of judgment, and despite what he'd done, he wanted her, too.

Kaycee didn't realize she'd stopped breathing until her lungs' cry for air had grown so desperate she was forced to start again. She took in a deep shuddering breath. She moved her hand again, forming the 'A.' She wrote the entire alphabet on the slate again, capitals and lowercase letters, and he held her fingers as they made the strokes, memorizing the feel. She named the letters as she wrote them, whispering them to him, and he repeated them after her. When they had gone all the way to 'Z,' she stopped, but he didn't release her hand, and Kaycee didn't want him to.

"And this—this is my name," she said, writing it, first and last, on the slate. "And this is yours."

Fenris named all the letters in both of their names, one by one. Then and only then did he let go. Kaycee's eyes followed his hand, resting on the stolen scarf still tied around his wrist.

"All right," she said, with more exuberance than she necessarily felt. "I think that's probably enough for tonight." She stood, and he stood with her. If the evening had become anything less than totally innocent, it was entirely his doing, she reflected, but then, he'd been the one to propose their relationship turning physical as well. He'd been the one to show up at her door, just like he had been the one to leave. But he still wore her scarf. _Talk about your mixed signals_.

At least Fenris seemed to realize how confusing he was being, Kaycee thought, as the corner of his mouth turned up, just barely, in an expression somewhere between bitter, ironic amusement and resignation. Not that the fact he knew it was much of a comfort. "You may be right," he said.

Kaycee nodded. She wanted to say something funny and brilliant before she left, but suddenly she was exhausted, so she simply turned to go. "Hawke." Fenris said. She looked back at him, and saw his face soften as he changed his mind. "Kaycee. Will you come back? For the reading?" he added, as if to clarify.

Kaycee regarded him. "You have legs, don't you?" she asked finally. "I'll call on you, though, the next time we're poking around the problems in this travesty of a city and I can use a sword, or someone to rip out a few entrails. The others have been asking about you, you know. Varric. Aveline. Isabela. Sebastian."

Fenris raised a cynical brow. "Not the witch or the abomination?"

Kaycee folded her arms. "Well, yes, but since you call her a witch to her face, Merrill's inquiries about you are only ever to be polite. Anders has been rubbing it in, actually. He always said you'd eventually desert us. Or maybe he hoped you would."

Fenris sniffed. "I shall have to rejoin you in your wanderings, then, if only to disappoint him."

"That's the spirit."

"No. The spirit is in the mage."

Kaycee laughed, and Fenris's eyes warmed, pleased. "Our next lesson," Kaycee said, returning to his question. She believed he truly did wish to learn to read and write, but something told her it would be better if it was his initiative. His choice. And—and perhaps they did need a chaperone, at least for a while. "When you want it, you know where I am."

"I will seek you out, then," Fenris agreed gravely. "Until next time, then."

Kaycee smiled. "Sweet dreams, Fenris."

Fenris's eyes scorched her face then fell away. He muttered something in Tevinter. Kaycee didn't catch it, but she understood the tone well enough, and she left without asking him to translate. Still, she wondered. If he had wanted to so badly, as indeed it seemed, by the Maker, why couldn't he just have stayed?


	3. Like Mother, Like Daughter

iii.

Like Mother, Like Daughter

And so it went. The niggling pain and anger, the last traces of awkwardness eventually left, but the reading lessons continued, until they had become semiweekly appointments between Kaycee and Fenris—evenings after supper, but before evening had turned too late, because things _had_ changed. More often than not they did end up meeting at Kaycee's estate. Neither of them said as much, but Kaycee suspected meeting in Fenris's bedroom was rather too much for him as well. So they met in her library, or, when the seasons rounded, in the courtyard behind the house.

Fenris was a fast learner, Kaycee found. Before a month had gone he was reading all the signs and notices around town, asking to read the papers they found out doing favors for the citizenry after she'd done with them herself. Before two months had gone, he was borrowing books from her library every time he left, returning them finished for the most part when he came back for the next lesson, with only a few difficult passages marked for clarification. At first he took the simple books, collections of children's stories and nursery rhymes, but then he took harder books of mythology and history. Poetry.

Their 'reading lessons' involved less and less reading, and more and more debate about what he was reading. The Chant of Light. Books of law and philosophy Kaycee's father had first introduced to her years ago on quiet mornings in the Lothering Chantry, after bargaining with scholars there willing to glance the other way for an hour or two for a bottle of fine wine or a rare herbal ingredient, or even a long, spirited intellectual discussion.

Kaycee had to read more and more herself to keep up with Fenris. It was wonderful getting back to the books, the questions and answers she had loved to explore so much with her father, and exploring them again with Fenris, getting to know how he thought as he learned it himself.

His outlook on life was far grimmer than her own, darkened by all he had been through, but Kaycee found Fenris surprisingly ready to accept her alternate experiences, how her father had helped and served the people around him all his life and taught her and Bethany to do the same, how their magic should serve that which was best in them, not that which was most base. She explained how he had trained them in self-discipline even more rigid than that which was practiced in the Circles of Magic—because he believed that a monitored child will never learn to monitor herself. Kaycee pointed out how the power of law or religion could corrupt as thoroughly as magic, how it often did. And if Fenris did not always come to agree with her, he always listened respectfully and considered what she said.

Their debates were involved, intense—both thoughtful and thought-provoking. The nights Fenris would come to exchange books and ideas soon became the highlight of Kaycee's week. After four months, they were only briefly working on his spelling and penmanship at the beginning of the evening—he had a natural feel for grammar, and his eloquence in speech carried over to his writing, but his hand still resembled chicken scrawl.

Her mother was always gracious when Fenris was in the house, but she made her disapproval known when he left. "He's a fugitive slave, dear, _squatting_ in that mansion. An elf who makes his living as a sword for hire," she said when he had gone one night. "All this time you're spending with him you could be spending getting to know people . . ." Leandra hesitated. "Well, more on your level. The Starlings have a party next week—"

Kaycee laughed. "It's adorable how you think _I'm_ on the level of the Starlings, Mama. I love you for it, but it's ridiculous."

"You are the granddaughter of Lord and Lady Amell," Leandra began.

Kaycee laughed again. "A house lousy with mages that only scraped by as noble because they were obscenely wealthy, before Gamlen squandered it all." Kaycee leaned in and kissed her mother's cheek. "Even before you eloped with an apostate and produced an apostate heir. It's useless, Mama. We may be obscenely wealthy again, but I will _never_ be respectable, and I won all that obscene wealth back for us doing almost precisely what Fenris is doing now. Except, you know, with a staff and not a sword. He even helped me do it."

Leandra sighed. "You're a grown woman. You know I don't try to tell you who your friends should be, and it's true that if I _started_ objecting, I'd start with the woman who goes around with her chest hanging out of her shirt, can't even be bothered to put on a pair of trousers, lives at the seediest tavern in town, and frequents the brothel more than seasoned soldiers, or so they tell me." Leandra took in a breath. Isabela was a recurring grievance for her.

Kaycee smiled. "But you'd _never_ try to tell me who my friends should be."

Leandra glared at her. "It's true that _in comparison_ ," she persisted, "this strange young man may not seem so bad, but you have to know what people are _saying_ , darling."

Kaycee waved a dismissive hand. "Don't worry, I'm not sleeping with him anymore."

She immediately regretted being so intentionally provocative when all the blood drained from her mother's face. Her knees went weak, and she sat on the chair at the desk, gripping the edge so tightly her knuckles went white. "Tell me that's one of your jokes, darling," she pleaded, searching Kaycee's face. "Tell me you haven't actually—it's true?"

Kaycee wrapped her arms around herself and turned away. It was one thing to make a joke of it herself. To have her mother state it like that, though—it made it all seem so real. So real and . . . irrevocable. "It was just the once," she said, trying to sound off-handed about it and failing utterly. "I don't understand why it's such a big deal. You never fussed like this in Lothering." She despised how defensive she sounded.

"Things were different in Lothering," Leandra pressed. "Here you had a chance to start over, to be somebody, make the future better for our family, your children. But it's all over town about you and this el—Fenris," she corrected herself at the last minute, her better self conquering her highborn prejudices, if only for a moment. "And if it's _true_ —it matters, Kaycee," Leandra said. She stood now, reached for Kaycee's shoulder. "You may not like it. It may not be fair or right, but that's the world we live in."

Kaycee shook off her mother, angry now. "A world where one man is less than another because his ears are pointy and he hails from the one place Andraste never liberated?" she demanded. "I want no part in that world, Mother! Fenris is smarter than half the nobles in Kirkwall combined! He speaks _three_ different languages. Fluently! He can fell a dozen men singlehanded, but the very people who would be tripping over themselves to honor him for it, for everything he is if he were human, won't pass him in the street as an elf. I don't care what you think! That's wrong!"

Leandra gazed at her, and then, incredibly, she smiled—helplessly and a bit sadly. She took Kaycee's face in her hands and brushed her cheeks with thumbs that were calloused from all the cooking and cleaning she still helped Orana with herself. "Oh, my brave, beautiful girl," she said. "You were never one to make things easy on yourself. You're so much like your father that way. But falling in love with a fugitive foreigner? I'm afraid that comes from me."

Kaycee made a face. "Who said anything about love? I said I slept with him. Once. He's my friend, and I don't like the way people talk or think about him, and I won't give up our reading lessons just to satisfy the prudery of a bunch of noble busybodies who would never really accept me anyway. That doesn't mean I love him."

Leandra kissed her forehead, hugged her briefly, and let her go. "Don't you?" she asked. "I've watched you together, you know. I've seen the way you light up in those 'reading lessons' of yours where the two of you talk for hours and maybe look at a book twice in all that time. And just now. My cool and witty daughter doesn't flare up like that for just anyone. But I've seen the way he looks at you, too. Like you hung the moon and stars. That scarf he wears around his wrist. It belonged to you, didn't it?"

This time, Kaycee's laugh came out sounding forced. "You're such a romantic, Mama. Trust me: it's all over between Fenris and me. We're friends, nothing more."

* * *

 **A/N: Okay, so DA2 has three characters that are so intelligent it's amazing they find each other in one section of Kirkwall. Varric Tethras-who really probably is a genius; Snarky!Hawke-you could make an argument for Heroic!Hawke or Mean!Hawke as well, but it's clearest for Snarky!Hawke, who is definitely amusing themselves most of the game because they are otherwise bored out of their mind; and Fenris. The other characters have their strengths and talents, but as Kaycee notes here, Fenris really is quite remarkable. All you have to do is listen to the way he thinks and take a look at what he's managed to do. And because Malcolm Hawke was almost certainly a genius as well, I imagine Hawke and siblings were very thoroughly home-schooled.**

 **So this is the part of the story where my thoroughly home-schooled Kaycee helps Fenris become a self-educated polymath (he already was a polyglot). One of those things that I don't think necessarily has to happen in-game but very certainly could.**

 **Leave a review if you've got something to say,**

 **LMS**


	4. A Foolish Bit of Sentimentality

iv.

A Foolish Bit of Sentimentality

Still, Kaycee found herself wondering about her mother's words over the next few days, and the next week, they were still present in her mind.

It had been a long day, and not a particularly pleasant one, what with having to report the qunari envoys' deaths to the Arishok, especially given Mother Petrice had slipped the net again. Grimly, Kaycee wondered just how Varnell had felt when Petrice publicly denounced him before the mob. What might he have been able to tell them if they'd had just a few of Aveline's guard on hand and had been able to take him alive?

Both Kaycee and Fenris were tired, but neither of them had suggested postponing their reading lesson to tomorrow. Kaycee suspected Fenris didn't care to be alone this evening any more than she did. But her mother's words echoed in her head.

Anyone walking into the library now expecting to find the two of them engaged in any sort of lesson would be puzzled at what they found. Fenris was sitting on the sofa, immersed in a thick tome by Chantry philosopher Brother Martin Embry. Kaycee sat on the floor at his feet, leaning half against the sofa, half against his leg, writing a record of the day's adventures in a book.

This when there was a perfectly good writing desk standing there across the room.

It was a scene more domestic than academic, and as the evening wore on, Kaycee realized that this comfortable tableau was not an infrequent occurrence. They often sat this way after a hard day, when Fenris had found a particularly engrossing volume in her library and couldn't wait to open it when he returned to his home. He never left, though. Not until the Chantry bells rang out the second watch of the evening. Sometimes they sat this way when he practiced his lettering, too. Kaycee couldn't remember when that had happened, when she'd stopped caring about the personal boundaries she'd observed so vigilantly at the beginning of their acquaintance, but she couldn't recall him complaining even once.

She frowned, and laid aside her diary. "Fenris?"

"Mmm?"

"These aren't really reading lessons anymore, are they? I mean, you read as well as I do now. Better, because you're learning how to read the volumes in here even I don't understand—the Tevinter ones I got mother just for show and so on."

Fenris laid down his book as well. Kaycee moved down along the couch so as to be able to see his face better, but he shifted uncomfortably when she moved her torso away until she brought her legs around so her ankles brushed his leg instead. He smiled. "I suppose you're right. These last few weeks, these nights have shifted from learning letters to learning more about the world in general. I never had the opportunity to receive a formal education. You have quite the library, Hawke."

Kaycee waved a hand. "Oh, like I said, it's mostly so mother can show off for all her noble friends." She snorted, letting the façade fall away. "I've always loved to read. Something my father taught me. Many of the books here are ones he showed me, years ago. Or told me about, anyway. One of the ways we keep him close."

"I enjoy discussing them with you," Fenris said gravely. "Or hearing you speak of him. Or speaking of nothing at all. It is always good to see you, just to have you near."

Kaycee frowned. She drew her knees up to her chest, away from him. The words were simple, honest. They could be the plain declaration of a man who made no pretensions and did not have many friends, but looking up at him, her eyes fell upon that damned scarf, still tied around his wrist, four months after he had taken it, and she remembered what her mother had said, and wondered if they were more than that.

"Is something wrong?" Fenris asked.

Kaycee gathered her courage. "Fenris—that scarf," she said quietly. "Why did you take it? Why do you wear it still?"

Fenris looked surprised. His hand went to cover it, as if to protect it. "I did take it," he confessed. "A foolish bit of sentimentality. It was wrong of me. Would you like it back?"

Kaycee regarded him. "That doesn't answer my question," she said. Fenris bowed his head. His hair fell into his eyes, and his fingers worked at the knot. "Stop," she told him.

Fenris looked at her then, a question in his face.

"Never mind why you took it," Kaycee told him. "If it means something to you, keep it." She could see he'd rather relinquish the token than explain its meaning, but it was clear her mother had at least been on the right track. The memento had some sort of serious significance to Fenris—perhaps was even a sort of pledge.

"Thank you," he murmured.

"Fenris," Kaycee said, mustering up the last bit of courage she possessed.

"Yes?"

Kaycee swallowed, trying not to think about how much she meant what she was saying. "It's good to see you as well. It's—it's always the best part of the week, the evenings I'm with you."

Fenris gave her the small smile he never bestowed upon anyone else, and took up his book again. He didn't move, but when Kaycee turned around to lean against him once more, he shifted to make her more comfortable.


	5. Enough

v.

Enough

The house, Kaycee decided, was ridiculously large. No one actually needed this much space. Of course, it was a bit late now. The old Amell estate was bought and paid for; it was done. But she really should have considered how wrong for her it was before she bought it, she thought. This house had been built for large extended families: the heirs and their spouses, aged parents, brothers, sisters, children, their children's spouses, their grandchildren. It was supposed to be run by at least half a dozen servants, probably closer to ten; a whole staff. Living alone here with a single manservant and his son and a maid that doubled as a cook—it was sad, really. And the halls echoed, and she could swear all the ghosts of generations past bounced off the walls and made the whole place even lonelier.

At least the ghosts of generations past were more tolerable than her own ghosts. Even the living ones. Carver had had his head up his arse for years, but just now Kaycee missed him so badly it was a physical ache. Was killing darkspawn in the Deep Roads so urgent the Wardens couldn't release him to come home now? Even just for a while? Kaycee looked around at the polished wooden furniture, at the expensive rugs and the embroidered hangings. Carver had never even seen the estate. How he'd hate it!

Bethany would have loved it, though. Kaycee could almost hear her, rustling through the halls in an Orlesian silk dress, laughing with their friends. She would have loved all of it. In many ways, perhaps even with her magic, Bethany had been more of an Amell than any of them. But she'd never so much as set eyes on Kirkwall.

 _Is that better or worse?_

They'd never been able to honor Bethany's body properly, either. But there had at least been a complete body for Ser Wesley to pray over, for whatever good that had done Bethany.

The nausea and guilt were starting to settle in now, to become familiar. Kaycee didn't know that she wanted them to go away. She deserved them, owed it to her mother to carry them with her, both penance and tribute.

Then again, how had Quentin begun?

Still, if all of them had been half as vigilant as they should have been, her mother would still be alive. Aveline never should have dismissed Emeric's suspicions, but it was hardly all her fault, for all she was captain of the city guard. Kaycee could have had Mellon track the bastard down at the foundry three years ago. It wouldn't have saved Ninette, but so many others might have been spared, including her mother.

Like missing Carver, Leandra's absence was a physical thing. It howled behind the closed door of her bedroom, the loudest, most painful ghost that haunted this big, empty house. Kaycee hadn't been able to bear the thought of going into that room yet, even to sort out her mother's things.

Kaycee ran her thumb absently over the crimson embroidery of the emblem in her hand, the symbol of a house that would likely die with her. Her mother had made the emblem, and Kaycee had fished it out of her trousseau in lieu of braving her mother's room.

Trousseau. Ridiculous, but her mother had insisted she have one, and since it had made her so happy, Kaycee had allowed it, even though she knew she'd never use it. She was the disgraced child of a disgraceful elopement, a known apostate, albeit one too rich and renowned for the Templars to touch, at least openly, at least just yet. She had to suspect the motives of any man of lineage and influence that courted her.

But Leandra had always believed more in her children than they'd believed in themselves. She'd had such pride in all of them, and when they'd first bought the house, she had hung all her family's old banners and sigils up around the estate.

She had embroidered the crest on Kaycee's clothing with her own hands, made small badges for the servants as well. The crest in Kaycee's hand, though, was different. No servant's emblem: it was a proper belt crest, sometimes worn by a sworn sword, sometimes a member of the house, but always by a warrior that fought for and represented the family.

But despite their recent rise in fortune and respectability, the Hawkes had hardly risen so high in the world they had sworn swords running around all over the place, so Leandra had made this for Kaycee's future husband, a gift for the future she said Kaycee was building.

Kaycee's fingers closed around the crest. Even the dream was gone, now, and all that was left was the house. This ridiculous, empty house that Carver would absolutely hate and never come home to anyway, that was far too big for Kaycee to live in, and would never see her children.

"I don't know what to say; but I am here."

Kaycee looked to the door. She would have expected Gamlen returning, Aveline, Anders, Merrill, or Sebastian. Even Varric or Isabela—if they'd brought something particularly strong with them—any of her friends, before she'd have expected Fenris. But as she looked at him, standing in the doorway, she wondered how she hadn't known that he would come. She jerked her head.

"Does it matter what you say?"

He walked over. "I suppose it doesn't. To be honest, I don't think there is much point in filling these moments with empty talk. There is nothing I _can_ say—but if there is something you _must_ say, or if you would rather say nothing at all—I am listening."

He sat beside her, and Kaycee just stared. "I just—" Kaycee broke off. At last, at last they came. The dam inside her broke, and the tears came in a flood, a torrent. And Kaycee wept. She wept because her sister was dead. She wept because her brother was gone. She wept because she'd failed to save her mother from being murdered and she was all alone. Kaycee wept until she was choking, and she heard Fenris moving beside her but was too blind to see what he was doing, and didn't care.

Until his arm came around her, stripped of its armor, to gently but insistently press her into his shoulder. Helplessly, Kaycee went, burying her wet and fevered face into his neck, and he held her as she shook and raged and grieved. It went on for a long time.

But there comes a moment when there are no more tears, when a person has cried all they can cry and they are empty, at peace—if only for a time. When Kaycee came back to herself, eyes swollen and puffy, nose streaming, head pounding, Fenris was still holding her, stroking her back gently, his lips against her hair. And Kaycee realized it was enough. That if he'd come to her like this when she needed him most, if she wouldn't be alone, that it would always be enough. Slowly, her arms came up to hold him, too, and she closed her eyes and breathed in the scent of him, felt the presence of him, and knew that he loved her, and it was enough.

Eventually she sat up and wiped her nose and face with the handkerchief she kept in her sleeve. Fenris stayed beside her, silent, until she was ready. "Thank you. Really."

"It is nothing," Fenris said. "Losing your family—I cannot imagine."

"That doesn't matter. All that matters is you came. That you were here."

Fenris said nothing, only looked down at the floor, embarrassed. Kaycee picked up the crest from beside her where it had fallen. She held it in her hand, turned it over. She looked up at Fenris beside her—a fugitive foreigner, an elf, and a mercenary. Not the man her mother had made their emblem for by any stretch of the imagination. But she wondered if her mother had known before she died that this man was the only man who could ever possibly claim it.

She swallowed, feeling the emptiness of the house that would always be too empty, the space in the bed that Fenris would leave in mere moments, unless she was mistaken—and she hardly ever was. It was a bitter choice, certainly. But after tonight, she knew she could make no other. She would not.

She turned her hand over and handed Fenris the emblem. "Here," she said. "She made this. Carver can only ever wear the sigil of the Wardens now, and it never seems to match my outfit. But it shouldn't go to waste. You should have it."

Fenris's fingers traced the stitching. "This—this is your personal heraldry."

"It's a noble and impressive-looking emblem of a dead house," Kaycee said flatly. "The Amell sigil. I'm a Hawke. But the red matches your scarf." She shrugged and looked away. At the mention of the scarf, Fenris's gaze sharpened. He peered at her, and if he noticed how blotchy her face or how bloodshot her eyes were from all the crying, not a flicker of it showed in his expression, just a searching question that Kaycee wouldn't meet his gaze to answer.

"You're sure you wish to give this to me?" Fenris prodded her. "For me to wear it could give off a certain . . . impression."

Kaycee looked up. "Let it," she said simply. Then, more quietly, she added, "Take it how you will, Fenris. Any way you look at it, you have more of a right to wear it than anyone else."

Fenris held her eyes for a moment. Then, slowly, he nodded his acceptance. "Then you have my thanks. I don't know if you might help me put it on?"

Kaycee swallowed, but she nodded, too. They stood together. Silently, Kaycee unbuckled Fenris's belt and removed it. She took her crest back from him and threaded it onto the belt, then encircled his lean hips with the belt once more. Touching him was unavoidable as she fastened the belt again, and Kaycee didn't try to avoid it. When she finished, her fingers hovered for a moment before they fell away, long enough for him to see he really could take this gift any way he wanted.

He caught her hands as they fell and held her gaze. He hesitated, and Kaycee saw the temptation, his desire for her, and his desire to comfort her all warring with his fear and regret in the back of his eyes. His thumb moved across the back of her hand in the ghost of a caress. Then he shook his head. He brought her hands to his lips and kissed her fingers, and it was an apology. Kissed her forehead, and it could be farewell, though she could feel the tension in him as taut as a bowstring.

"I am sorry," he said.

Kaycee only smiled, though the tears were beginning to flow again. "Never mind," she answered. "Can you just stay anyway? That's enough. That'll always be enough."

"Gladly," he said. "Come." And he led her back to the bed, and held her until she cried herself to sleep.

* * *

 **A/N: I can't help it. I always pull consideration of realpolitik into the heads of my DA characters like it is in every other aspect of the game. Social status is always everything in these games, and family lineage (or the lack thereof) is incredibly important to nobles and half-nobles. So my Gwyn Cousland is always very concerned with the survival of her line, Leandra Hawke (née Amell) always regretted her descent to a Ferelden apostate a little (her social decline if not the actual marriage) and wanted to believe her children were still nobility, and Kaycee the southern apostate knows there's no way she's respectable-whatever they say about her to her face, they're saying something else behind her back. (Because really, you _know_ they are. Up-jumped dog lord, a bad example to all the maleficar in Kirkwall-if Hawke doesn't have to bow to the Templars, why should they?, nouveau riche somehow because the Amell claim isn't valid for Malcolm Hawke's daughter after Gamlen Amell lost the fortune, et cetera.)**

 **These characters are always thinking about class, family, prospects, and lineage. They have to. That's the world they live in. It makes me very glad it's not my world.**

 **Best Always,**

 **LMS**


	6. A Dance Partner

vi.

A Dance Partner

Being the Champion of Kirkwall was not nearly as fun as it sounded. There was the obvious: things she had once done for coin or as favors to her friends and neighbors she was now expected to do out of the kindness of her heart for anyone who asked. Not that the kindness wasn't there, but it was irritating to have it prevailed upon all the time. Sometimes it seemed she never slept!

Then there were the other charming features of the office. A never-ending stream of parties and ceremonies, and a line of scheming, social-climbing suitors that seemed nearly as endless. Kaycee always missed her mother, but sometimes she missed her especially so she could laugh at how Leandra had hoped she might marry one of the calculating, amoral power-grubbers she met these days. It was almost enough to make a girl want to get caught patronizing the most notorious whores at The Blooming Rose—at least they were honest about what they wanted. But Kaycee wondered if even a prostitution scandal would daunt her suitors at this point. Probably just encourage the dirty ones to reveal their own strange fetishes.

What with the swarming suitors and the mounting tension between the Templars and the mages, nights at the Hanged Man with her friends were becoming more precious by the day. And tonight was exceptionally special. The bad poet—Ronzan, Kaycee thought his name was—had brought in a friend. The friend had brought his fiddle, and _he_ was actually not untalented. Varric was tapping his fingers on the table in time, and a few patrons had started a dance in the center of the room. Good old Lowtown boys and girls—not the nobles, Circle mages, and Templars that plagued her life out everywhere else—and she could hear from their voices raised in song that some of them were Ferelden.

Suddenly Kaycee wasn't contented with Wicked Grace. She wanted to dance. She put her cards down on the table. "Anyone care to join me over there?" she asked. "I don't think I've danced a good country reel for years."

Isabela considered. "A few more drinks in me, and I might," she conceded, but laughed. "I'm not drunk enough yet not to care about making an arse of myself. Could be fun later. Be careful, though, Hawke. Some of them look like they're much further gone than me."

"I'll go with you," Merrill offered, and surprisingly, Sebastian did as well. Everyone else demurred, though Varric said he'd be sure to take notes on their performance for his stories. Kaycee made a face at him, and rose with the mage and the brother to join the fun.

The dancers were weaving in a circle now, and they opened up willingly to let Kaycee join the pattern. Kaycee grinned, breathed in the foul-smelling air of her favorite tavern, heard the sweeping rhythms of the fiddler, and danced.

As the night wore on, the folk dancing turned to couples dancing. Isabela came to the floor, but after a couple dances, Merrill left, citing limited knowledge of human dances. Sebastian stayed a while longer, chivalrously partnering both Kaycee and Isabela. He was a considerate partner and a skilled one, if not particularly exciting.

Kaycee liked some of the others better. A redheaded Ferelden lad named Regie—probably seven years her junior, but bold and beautiful, with dimples. An older man—a widower, judging by the woman's ring strung on a chain about his neck. He was a laborer with calloused palms and hulking muscles. He towered over Kaycee, but he had soft, brown eyes and a kind smile.

But Kaycee's favorite partner was a man about her own age named Morgan. Another friend of the fiddler, he seemed to be a prosperous gambler, slim and brown-haired with long, elegant fingers, a wicked grin, and a cynical brow. He didn't seem the least bit daunted by her title or her magic, and the way he spun her so fast and leaned in to talk to her as they danced left her with a pleasant tingle in her stomach. He wanted her. She didn't have the slightest intention of doing anything about it, but it was nice to be held again, to _feel_ rather than merely _know_ that she was still young with a bloom still on her. Kaycee allowed her mind to wander where she might have gone, with Morgan or someone else, several years ago, or if things were different. She didn't regret the choices she'd made—much—but it'd been so blighted _long._

Kaycee smiled up at Morgan, encouraging him on as their feet moved to the pattern of this particular dance. She passed under his arm, circled him twice, and as he turned to make his way down the row where he would meet her a few steps along, Kaycee turned to face the partner she would have until then.

Kaycee stared into eyes like spring grass or a dappled creek, under an untidy fringe as white as the refined lyrium markings that curled and wound around all over her his olive skin. Then she grinned, a smile as bright as the summer sun. But her momentary surprise had set her behind the time, and by the time she had recovered enough to reach for Fenris's hand—mercifully ungauntleted—she had to rush the next two steps to catch up.

It was still a relatively fast dance, and it was getting late. Many of the patrons of The Hanged Man were too caught up in the music or too inebriated to be paying any attention to what anyone else was doing, but the Champion dancing with an elf had already attracted a few glances, Kaycee saw with amusement. She felt them on her skin like tangible question marks.

Let them stare, she thought. Everywhere he went, Fenris drew attention. For the incredibly artistic torture Danarius had inflicted upon him, yes, but also because he was especially beautiful, even for an elf—with his strong but thoughtful features and tight, lean body, all encased in skintight leather armor. Kaycee was always satisfied that Fenris never paid any attention to the admiring looks he received from both men and women, though she knew he wasn't oblivious. Tonight was no different. He kept those incredible eyes fixed upon _her_ face, her form, and the heat in it set her ablaze. Was tonight the night, she wondered? Three years, and she knew he hadn't so much as looked at anyone else, but he hadn't ever touched her again after he'd left, either. Not _that_ way. She'd always got the sense—in the evenings they spent debating or quietly reading in his mansion or hers and elsewhere—that nevertheless he still wanted to, and when he was ready and able, he would return to her. Tonight, his hands didn't stray a single inch from the prescribed positions of the dance—clasping hers, entwining with her forearms, brief touches on her shoulders. But Kaycee could feel the hum in Fenris's skin, and if looks were actions, even the owner of the Hanged Man would have thrown them out by now.

"You weren't going to join us," she teased him. "Something change your mind?"

"What good is all that practice I do at home if I can't put it to use?" Fenris replied, circling her then meeting her hands with his once again. "Besides, you looked like you were having so much fun."

The words themselves were innocent, lighthearted, but his tone set Kaycee smiling again. She heard the double meaning. Where her hand touched his wrist, the once-coarse fabric of her old scarf had been worn soft with many careful washings. Despite all the battles they'd fought, all the blood Fenris had shed, he'd kept her stolen favor spotless.

Then their turn was done. Kaycee passed under Fenris's arm, circled him twice, clapped, and turned to take her promenade down the row to return to Morgan as the dance dictated.

The charming gamer smiled wryly as he took her into his arms once again. He jerked his head down the row at Fenris. "He's another one from the stories the dwarf tells about you, isn't he? Like your friend the Chantry brother and lovely Isabela." He nodded at Isabela across the row. Of course Isabela was well known to all the tavern regulars.

"My friend Fenris," Kaycee acknowledged.

"He's an interesting figure in the stories," Morgan said, looking over at Fenris again, now dancing with a very pretty blonde girl that looked hardly old enough to be out so late dancing in a tavern. She was giggling at her friend, next to her in the line, half unable to believe her good luck, half scandalized and delighted with her own daring, dancing with an elf. Fenris was ignoring her quite shamefully, going through the motions of the dance, but gazing right back down the line at Kaycee and her partner. Kaycee made a face at him.

"Interesting figure in person, too," Morgan observed quietly. "Though I assume that ripping hearts from the chests of your enemies is a poetic exaggeration?"

Kaycee turned her smile back to her partner. Fenris could be rude if he liked, but she wouldn't be accused of neglecting Morgan. "You know that one's actually true?" she chuckled. "A lot of what Varric says about all of us and our exploits isn't. But that is."

"And the other things they say about _him_?" Morgan asked, obviously referring to Fenris again. The fiddler made one more sweep of his bow, and their song ended. Kaycee bowed as she was supposed to, but only smiled again in answer to his question. Morgan raised his eyebrows, though not in judgment, she thought, and bowed in his turn.

The fiddler was begging to retire, but The Hanged Man hadn't yet had enough. They cheered and jeered until, laughing and disclaiming, the bad poet's much more successful friend agreed to play one more dance.

"You don't mind if I take her from you?" Fenris had come up again, and addressed Morgan.

The gambler bowed. "I think, master elf, I should have asked you that question before claiming my last dances," he said graciously. "I return you your Champion."

As the fiddler's bow drew across his strings, slow and sweet, Fenris replied, "I am no one's master, and Kaycee belongs only ever to herself."

Characteristic of him, Kaycee thought. Proud, and within the disclaimer itself was a statement of possession. Still, the display was somewhat surprising, given that there had never been any spoken promises between them. Her mouth twitched in amusement. Morgan looked between the two of them, and his eyes danced mischievously. "Indeed," he said. He leaned in and kissed Kaycee on the corner of her mouth, deliberately provoking the fuming Fenris. "A pleasure, Champion. You dance beautifully."

"Good night, Morgan," Kaycee replied, gripping his hand once.

Fenris waited, eyebrows raised, and extended his hand. "Shall we?"

"You're so sure I'll say yes," Kaycee murmured, looking at him through her lashes. "The scene you're making, it would serve you right if I turned around and went home."

"Perhaps," Fenris admitted. His mouth curved up self-consciously. "Do you intend to do so?" In answer, Kaycee merely gave him her hand and let him lead her back to the floor.

The Hanged Man was hardly a grand ballroom. Isabela had finally left the dancing—she was in the back corner, plastered to the muscled widower like a barnacle. The patrons singing along to the sad, old folk song the fiddler played were out of tune, drunk, and emotional. A few of them had started to pass out on the tables. Many others had filtered out, and of course, the place smelled like smoke and piss and mystery meat, much as it always did.

But the fiddle was high and tremulous. Though most of the dancers had gone, a few couples remained on the floor. The owner and his wife—a rotund, ill-tempered thing now nestled into her husband's chest as quiet as could be. A man and his mistress. The blonde girl and her friend, not holding one another, but just clasping hands and stepping in a circle. The young Ferelden Regie and an old beggar woman that fed the birds down in the crooked streets of Lowtown. And Kaycee, encircled in Fenris's arms, following his lead, every inch of her alive to him, though her eyes were almost closed. Her hands on his chest felt the beat of his heart, and in this dance, their dance, thank the Maker, he had ceased to care so much about observing the proper form. He kept his gaze on the warped and stained wooden floor. But it was as if now he finally held her, now that barrier had been breached, he could not help himself. Hesitantly, his thumb stroked a gentle circle on her back, and his left hand on her shoulder reached to play with the strands of her black hair.

The sweet tension of it was almost unbearable. In his arms now, reminded of all they did _not_ share—not since that first time—Kaycee was suddenly awash with longing. She'd only felt a deep friendship for him and a curious attraction then. She hadn't loved him. She did now. So much she could barely believe it was possible. Kaycee had grown accustomed to the way things had settled between them, almost been resigned that he might never be ready to return to her completely. To have the possibility dangled before her that now he might—especially if it was torn away—all at once it was too much. Kaycee broke away abruptly, before he could see the tears that had sprung to her eyes.

Fenris tripped, then stopped as well. The song continued without them.


	7. Vows Unspoken

vii.

Vows Unspoken

"Is something wrong?" Fenris asked.

Kaycee gave a single, sharp nod. She took in a shaking breath, then said, "Would you walk with me, Fenris?"

Fenris peered at her. "Lead," he agreed after a moment. "I will follow."

Though they had drawn only idle interest before, Kaycee felt many more people perk up through their alcoholic haze as she and Fenris walked out of The Hanged Man in the middle of the last waltz. She hadn't minded before, but now she resented their curious glances. Couldn't the small-minded idiots in this town find another source of juicy gossip than the half-fabricated life of the Champion of Kirkwall? It felt like she'd been the talk of the town since the Deep Roads expedition, or even a little before.

Kaycee and her friends had been keeping the streets clear, and all of civilized Kirkwall was now fast asleep, so it wasn't long before Kaycee and Fenris got to an empty avenue far enough from The Hanged Man she could be sure they wouldn't make a scene. She kept walking toward Hightown, but began speaking.

"Please don't confuse me, Fenris," she said quietly. "I was fine, I truly was. I was all right with things as they were. If you never touched me again, so long as you were with me, there when I needed you, I decided a long time ago it would be enough. But if you're going to act like there's more between us than that in front of other men, if you're going to hold me like you mean it—please _mean_ it, that's all I ask."

Fenris was silent a long moment. "I did mean it," he confessed at last. "Forgive me. I know I have no right to interfere. There are no promises between us. But I did not care for the way he looked at you. Could you not see his intentions?"

Kaycee's heart beat faster, but she managed to recover her composure. "A blind woman could have seen his intentions. That says nothing at all about mine. I was just dancing, and I asked you first." In truth, she'd asked all of their friends first, but she'd carried her point well enough. Fenris seemed taken aback.

They walked quietly together for a long while before he spoke again. "That man was not the first. There are many men—many women, if you chose—who would gladly be your lover, Hawke."

Kaycee looked over at him. "There's no one else here, Fenris," she pointed out. "You don't have to call me by my surname. You were quick enough back there to be more familiar than anyone ever is these days. You might as well continue on."

She saw his cheeks flush in the lamplight as they wound their way through the streets and back alleys of Kirkwall, up the stairs through upper Lowtown toward Midtown. "I know it was a liberty. But thank you . . . Kaycee. If I could ask, why haven't you entertained any of your other suitors? You have had more than one offer of marriage, even, or so I've been told."

Kaycee sighed. "What would I do with a respectable husband?" she replied. "What would a respectable husband do with me? I haven't gotten any offer I took seriously for a moment." She paused. "As for the other—why did you come out to dance after all?" She reached out and tapped Fenris's wrist once, where he wore her favor. She smiled sadly. "I've always known you loved me, in your way," she said. "You've always let me and everyone see it. It's too valuable a gift not to honor."

Fenris stopped dead. They were in an alley in Midtown, among the houses of the merchants and artisans of Kirkwall. Kaycee turned to face him, waiting. He looked like she'd clubbed him over the head with her staff. The lyrium in his skin was shining in the dark. "After three years, you still would have me?" he asked, incredulous. His voice shook. "Kaycee—I have risen no higher than what I was then. I cannot do so, but you are the Champion of Kirkwall, one of the most powerful humans in the city."

Kaycee shook her head. "Champion of Kirkwall," she repeated contemptuously. "A fancy title Meredith slapped on me so she wouldn't have to risk the political fallout of clapping me in irons after I killed the Arishok. It doesn't change who I am. For all Varric's tall tales and all my scheming suitors, I'm still the same Ferelden apostate I always was. No more respectable than you—not really—or even worse. Someday they might even remember that." She reached out and softly touched his cheek. "Not that respectability really matters to me. It doesn't say anything about who either of us is. Fenris, I would have had you any time you were ready. I forgave you no more than two weeks after you left."

Fenris's eyes kindled. Tentatively, he bent his head down and kissed her lips once, softly, then when she kissed him back, he let out a groan that he seemed to have been holding in for three years. He gathered her up in his arms like she was nothing and kissed her harder, just like she remembered—like he was trying to devour her or he needed her to breathe. Kaycee clutched his shoulder, knotted her fingers in his hair, and let her head fall back as he bit his way down her jaw. His hand moved from her waist to her backside right in the street, and she let it. He gave a helpless, sad, disbelieving laugh. "I was a coward and a fool," he told her in between kisses. "Kaycee—I am yours. I have always been yours."

"Shut up," Kaycee told him fiercely, and stopped his mouth with another hot and open kiss. For a long time there was no more talking, just fevered hands and hungry mouths and the flash of lyrium in the dark.

When they came up for air, Kaycee didn't know whether to laugh or cry. "I've been waiting for you to do that for three years."

"I was such a fool at first, I did not think I could," Fenris told her. His voice sent a shiver of pleasure running from Kaycee's toes to the very tips of her hair. "Eventually your actions led me to believe otherwise, but then they hailed you Champion of Kirkwall, and I thought the time for us had passed. But I have wanted you every day since the night I left. Being without you—there is nothing worse." He kissed her again, slow and deep. "Do you truly forgive me?"

Kaycee clung to him, letting him support her as her knees turned to jelly. "I'll do anything you like and forgive anything you want if you keep doing that and follow up on it. Maker's breath, I forgot just how good you feel."

Fenris's hands were everywhere at once, sending delicious warmth through her where they touched. "Yet your touch has been in my mind, tormenting me every moment," he murmured.

Before they passed the point of no return, and Kaycee found herself on her back with her trousers around her knees in the alleyway, and too flooded with desire and need to care anymore, she pushed back on him, smiling. She took his face between her palms. "If we head back to the estate, I can do something about that," she suggested. "We can't have me _tormenting_ you—at least not in any of the _bad_ ways." She stepped away and held her hand out.

Fenris was still glowing, but he took her hand, and in a few moments the glow had subsided as they resumed their walk back to Hightown.

After they had been walking a while, Kaycee asked quietly, "Fenris. Will you have _me_ now? Or will you leave before dawn again and will it be another three years?"

Fenris ran his thumb up and down the back of her hand. "I do not know what will happen, what I will feel when I am with you," he admitted. "But what I feel _for_ you has not changed in all this time. I do not believe it can. It has only grown stronger. I will stay."

"Good." Kaycee said firmly.

"And what of Danarius? If he should ever return for me?" Fenris asked.

"What of the Templars?" Kaycee replied. "If Meredith ever decides it's no longer worth it to tolerate me? We'll handle it. You and I will handle anyone foolish enough to come after us, the same as we've always done."

Fenris squeezed her hand, but as they crossed the bridge into Hightown at last, he still seemed thoughtful. "What kind of life will we have, I wonder? A foreign former slave and an apostate mage?"

Kaycee shrugged. "One fairly similar to my parents', I suppose, and they had so many wonderful years before Father died." She did not feel overly concerned speaking with such confidence of the future before them. She had asked him to stay only till the morning; he was the one that had spoken of a life together, and if they had not ceased wanting one another in all this time, he was right to do so.

Fenris raised his eyebrows in disbelief. "Would you wed me then? Bear elf-blooded children? Perhaps you are your mother's daughter, but to do that would be to go further than she ever did. Neither we nor our children would ever be welcome in civilized society."

Kaycee snorted. "Are we now? The only reason any civilized person in Kirkwall allows me to darken their doorstep is because if they didn't, they would have to start solving their own little problems. How much further can an apostate fall, anyway? Take me to the Chantry, for all I care. I never put much stock in the place, but I suppose if Sebastian married us, it might not be too bad."

Fenris stopped again, pulled Kaycee around to look at him. "Do not make light of this," he warned her.

"I wasn't," Kaycee protested. "At least, not entirely." she admitted. She met his eyes. "I truly don't care what anyone says, Fenris. If you want to get married, I'm willing."

By some twist of fate, they'd stopped in the Red Lantern District, near the Blooming Rose, and at that moment, one of the whores rounded the corner and saw them standing in the street. It was now the darkest watch of the night. The whore could not make out their individual features. The stars above were beginning to fade, though dawn could be hours yet. But by the light of the lanterns, she could at least make out their silhouettes, and see that Fenris was an elf and Kaycee was human, and he was garbed like a warrior—not one of the Rose's. She cackled softly.

"And a good night to you both! Lay milady down sweet tonight, _falon_ ," she called. "Serah, when you tire of him, you can always find someone else to your tastes at the Rose."

Fenris tensed, but Kaycee didn't flinch. " _Ma serannas_ ," she replied. "My thanks for your kind offer. But you have no one in the place I could like as much as my lover here. I'll be keeping him, if it's all the same to you."

The whore laughed again, but this time, there was a note of respect in her voice. "Be _sure_ to lay milady down sweet tonight, _falon_ ," she said emphatically to Fenris. "You've a good one there."

Fenris's expression was awestruck. His entire body had relaxed. "You've no idea," he told the whore, without taking his eyes away from Kaycee for a moment. "Nor ever will, if I have anything to say about it."

He jerked his head away, toward Kaycee's mansion, and they began walking again. They passed directly in front of a lantern, and the whore saw Kaycee's face. Her heavily painted amber eyes widened in surprise as she recognized her. "Champion!"

Kaycee winked at the elven prostitute, and pulled Fenris's arm around her shoulders. "Good night to you."

"Good . . . good night," the girl said dumbly, waving at them as they passed out of the square.

Fenris was fighting a smile. "It will be all over Kirkwall by midmorning tomorrow. No turning back now."

"And look, I don't regret a thing!" Kaycee said lightly, turning her face up to Fenris. "Come Blight or famine or dragonfire."

Fenris's eyes glowed in the dark, and she could feel the hum running through him again. He kissed her, softly and chastely. "Then you did not lie. You truly would—" They walked silently for a few more blocks, then Fenris said, "That you would consider tying yourself to me in any formal way, after all this time and all that I have done, means more than I can say. But Kaycee—I do not ask it of you. You would be surprised by how much further even an apostate human could fall. Just to know that you would—it is enough."

Kaycee nodded in agreement. "If that's what you want. I don't need a ceremony to stay with you." She wouldn't say so, but she knew he was right. To take an elf to her bed was one thing. Even openly and long-term, it could be forgiven as eccentricity. If they went so far as to wed, however, she would be trading in almost all of whatever political influence she had, and with matters as they were in Kirkwall now, she might need it, and soon.

"Nor I with you," Fenris promised. "Come Blight or famine or dragonfire, I am yours." For a former slave to give himself so utterly was everything, Kaycee knew. She leaned over and kissed him again.

She hesitated to broach the next subject. She didn't want to spook him, but again—he had been the one to approach the topic tonight, and if they meant to be lovers for any considerable length of time, as happily it seemed they did, it was only practical to discuss it. "Fenris—just because we aren't getting married doesn't mean there won't be children," she warned him. "We can be careful with the timing, and there are potions I can take. Having a child would be incredibly inconvenient, but nothing we can do will eliminate the possibility entirely—nearly half the babies born into the world aren't planned. Our king—Ferelden's, I mean—he started out an accident. And you know Feynriel's story. And if by chance we slip—"

"I know it is likely that any such child would be born a mage," Fenris said calmly. "Do you think that I would care less for any little son or daughter of ours because of that? Though I suppose any elf-blooded bastard offshoot of a former slave and the Champion of Kirkwall would have troubles enough even without magic."

"As I said," Kaycee agreed. "It would be incredibly inconvenient. We'll do whatever we can to avoid it—short of actually restraining ourselves. Please don't let's do that," she asked, looking up at him anxiously, really only half joking.

Fenris smiled at her. "I think we are finished with restraint," he assured her, and his voice sent pleasurable shivers through her again. "If we do slip, however, if what you fear should come to pass, know that I am not afraid. Though you must not give any mage child of ours to the Circle here in Kirkwall. Its mother would be the only person I would trust to teach it to keep itself safe and discipline its mind to use its magic for others instead of power and personal gain."

Kaycee was the one to stop now, though they stood in the very street in front of her house. The lantern outside flickered cheerily over the Amell crest outside the door, and Kaycee looked at it on Fenris's belt and up again at his face. "Really?" she asked, disbelieving, overwhelmed. That he would raise their child an apostate, trust her enough to guide its steps—just seeing that from him would almost be worth all the inconvenience.

"Truly," Fenris answered, meeting her gaze. Something passed between them, and Kaycee could have sworn he wanted that child they did not want just as badly as she did for a moment.

She laughed nervously. "Purely hypothetically, of course," she said.

"Of course," he agreed. "Let us try to avoid the inconvenience. You cannot have had a potion recently, however. Is it—"

Kaycee calculated in her head, then nodded, incredibly relieved. "We're safe." If she had gotten all worked up and had to send him away!

Fenris stepped close to her then. "Good," he said. "That woman in the square gave me very specific instructions. Shall we take this inside and upstairs?"

"Please."

Fenris paused. A hint of mischief sparked in his eyes, and it did unspeakable things to her stomach. "Hmm. I like it when you beg," he remarked.

Kaycee shoved him, not too hard. "Three. Years."

"You have a point." And at last, he took her into his arms.

* * *

 **A/N: Maybe it's not too romantic, but in a society where social class is everything and I just bet any birth control is extremely chancy, even for a mage, grown-ups becoming long-term lovers should have conversations like this. Love isn't just about the warm, fuzzy feelings or an overwhelming attraction. It's a choice to go together through the rough spots. Kaycee and Fenris have had many of those in their past already. They'll have many more in the future. I don't foresee a happily-ever-after here for many, many years. There's the Mage-Templar war and Corypheus to come, and despite what Fenris says here, he's very proud and rather possessive, and I think he and Kaycee will continue to struggle with their differing social standings for a long, long time.**

 **But I think Hawke and Fenris deserved a better reunion than the one in the game-and it almost seemed like they'd talked before Danarius's return and the resolution of that plotline. So here it is.**

 **I hope you liked the story. Thanks for joining me along the way,**

 **LMS**


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